NoDa.org has a new look. You may have wondered why. Well, it’s a long story, full of international sabotage, backdoor exploitation, and frustrating email correspondence that I’m not going to tell here, but it has a happy ending.

“In fall 2018, the site was hacked and we decided to just start from scratch,” recalls Nicole Peterson, who spearheaded the effort to get the site back up and running practically overnight. “Lauren Schalburg, Robbyn Tangney, and I sat around and picked a new theme and developed an infrastructure that we thought best suited the neighborhood and its interests. We were sorry to see the old design go, but we’ve gotten great feedback about the refresh and are excited about how it will evolve.”

I should mention that the old version was a professionally designed website that received minimal updates because of the complexity of its platform. Today, we have a dynamic website that is constantly changing and developed entirely through the passion and generosity of volunteerism.

Enter Matt Alvis, a recently elected NBA Board member, who took on the role of web administrator and has been developing new and exciting features for the website on an almost daily basis.

Of these new features, the two interactive maps are easily grabbing the most attention.

One map allows people to filter businesses by categories like shops, breweries, music & entertainment, etc., even by public parking locations. This information is useful for NoDa’s growing number of visitors, so the business map sits prominently on the website’s home page.

The other map provides details of all the public art installations in NoDa. You can search by a particular artist or zoom in on a particular area.

Matt described the inspiration behind the maps: “Every day, visitors and new residents search NoDa for the best places to eat, drink, and shop. As they walk around, they can see the many murals and sculptures that make NoDa unique, but until now there was no sufficient resource to connect them with the artists’ other works.”

Geolocating and categorizing the businesses and outdoor art of NoDa was a collaborative effort between NoDaRioty and NoDa Business Council, two recently reinvented committees. Of course, we don’t have all the information yet. There’s quite a large category on the art map that’s titled “Unidentified, You Can Help!” Check it out and be a hero by helping solve these creative mysteries. Send any missing information to info@noda.org.

You can find the maps at maps.noda.org or by clicking “interactive map” on the menu bar at the top of every page on the website. Next time you’re out and about with guests, you’ll have, in the words of Matt Alvis, “a handy-dandy pocket-guide for self-guided walking tours of NoDa’s sights, sounds, and flavors.”

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NoDa.org isn’t the only site in town documenting Charlotte’s art. Check out artwalksclt.com or Instagram @artwalksclt. ArtWalksCLT, founded by Anne Lowe and funded in part by a CreativeMornings grant, came online right around the same time. ArtWalksCLT provides structured routes with ordered information about the artwork you will see along the way. Right now, there are two separate NoDa walks as well a Plaza Midwood walk and an Uptown walk, with more in development.

So, get out there and see the creative side of Charlotte!